What if #Scandal was real and Olivia Pope was your best friend?

Liv, let me chit and chat witchu for a second, girl...

"What if Scandal was real and Olivia Pope was your best friend? What would you do?"

This was a question posed to me via email by an angry reader who presumed that me loving the show was the equivalent of me cosigning the foolery there within. The reader thought I was an advocate of the blatant shenaniganism that goes on Thursday at 9pm central on ABC (if we're lucky). I have to tell you that I was GIDDY to get this question. Like hop out of my chair, moonwalk sideways, ask Annie if she's okay, hit a prep two times and end with my middle aged version of a twerk happy. (And that's damn happy ya'll)

Why was I so happy? Because I get to reiterate for the eleventieth zillion time - this ish is FICTION!! I love it because of its purely escapist, ratchet-ass, over-the-top-dramatical goodness. Though there are moments that ring true like a zinger to my heart when they hit on a single, successful sister girl struggle; for the most part I can eat my popcorn and sip my wine shaking my head with a "whew! glad it's not me" gleefulness.

But to directly answer the question, if Scandal was real and Olivia Pope was my girl, here's what I'd do:

1) Move to Guyana, the place of my father's birth. President Fitz is glorious to look at and delivers that one word, "Hi." in the best thigh-quivering way ever but Ghostie has daddy issues, invisible children, a shrew of a wife and a closeness to Scotch bottles that makes me nervous for the sake of our great nation.

2) Take Liv on vacay. Girlie needs a no-strings "Stella groove" sun and rum-soaked week to the Caribbean in the worst damn way. She is way overdue for a whole lotta woo-sah. And I'd invite her mama along because I want to see wherefore Livvie comes from. 

3) Drag Harrison into the closest electrical closet and have my wicked way with him before telling him that no matter how damn fine he is or fast he talks? Gingham shirts and striped ties together are doing too much. 

4) Remind Liv that love is not supposed to be this damn hard. And to please stop looking for it in all the wrong places.

5) Give Abby a hug, hire Huck and Quinn to handle the rest of those pesky Al-Qaida

6) Setup Mellie and Edison on a date. That would be an intriguing power couple.

7) Recruit Cyrus and David to full-time gladiator status. 

8) Put Hollis in jail (for so many reasons). 

9) Dig Verna up, slap her around and then re-bury her without the pomp and circumstance.

10) Disappear Jake. I don't what his reasons are - luring someone you've been spying on to your bed is uber-creepy. Uber. 

And last but not least - Initiate an Olivia Pope and Associates Bible Study with room for friends and fam... cuz they all need Jesus.

Anything else? If Olivia was your homegirl - what would you do?

What you won't do for love... A Bougie Bachelorette Chronicle

One of my favorite songs of all time is Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do For Love" - it's one of those soulful classics that I grew up singing and had not nary a clue what the feazy I was singing about. 

I was thinking about these lyrics the other night.

Some people go around the world for love
But they may never find what they dream of
What you won't do, do for love
You've tried everything but you don't give up
In my world only you makes me do
For love what I would not do

Mr. Dude was in town and we were enjoying an evening with Trey and his sweetie du jour, Robin. I had already shamed David at the spades table (Dude, did you seriously just cut my ace to make your book? What did you think the jack of diamonds was going to do for you? When you have more than 5 spades, you need to up your bid!). Then after a lengthy discussion in which for the sake of our relationship we decided not to play any more games for the evening, we found ourselves watching Sparkle. 

There's a fairly horrific scene in which crazy dude Satin tells pretty girl Sister that he wants her to crawl for him. I had a visceral reaction not just to him beating her all to hell but also the thought of being asked to crawl. Trey, perennial troublemaker, asked - "So you wouldn't crawl if your man asked you to?"

My jaw dropped open as David and I exchanged glances and the first thought in my head flew out of my mouth, "He wouldn't be my man if he's asking me to crawl."

Robin asked, "Why would you say that?"

Me, "Why would someone who signed on to be my equal, my partner expect me to crawl? I wouldn't expect him to."

David piped in, "It's a relationship not slavery."

Trey said, "So what would you do for your man? What's the most extreme thing you would do? Give up your last dime, go homeless? Would you take a bullet? Commit a crime? Go to jail?"

Me, "Am I dating Suge Knight all of a damn sudden?" Everyone laughed and Robin asked Trey, "Are you Ride or Die? Would you do all of those things for love?"

Trey shrugged, "I don't know. Aren't you supposed to do anything for love?"

David, "In theory, yes." We fell silent for a minute, then I said, "This is one of those, you don't know until you're tested type of things. Sitting here right now it's easy to say sure, I'll jump in front of a bullet but when it's going down I may be inclined to dive under a car and hope he runs like hell."

Trey snarks, "My man ain't worth a bullet?"

Me, "I'll tell you what, if you're around - I'll push YOU in front of the bullet, how's that?"

After that we changed the subject. (Though Robin was sending Trey laser beam side-eyes the rest of the night) But I was wondering- just what would I do for love? I don't think I'm as "ride-or-die-down-for-whatever" as I used to be. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? BougieLand, what would you do? Are you catching bullets for your s/o? Willing to burn-up-your-clothes-smash-up-your-ride? Do share...

Three Wishes

I blame Jayme for the lateness of this post. I actually had three posts half-written until she called and got me sucked into one of her "What would you do?" game. When she does family counseling, she uses an icebreaker where she tells each member of the family to wish for three things. They write them down, put them in a box and then she pulls them out and the whole family tries to guess whose wish it was. 

This led to us having a genie-in-the-bottle discussion. If you had three wishes just for yourself and couldn't wish for more wishes - what would you wish for?

I grappled around with wishes for acceptance of circumstance, tolerance of others, unshakeable faith, a size four body and an unlimited shoe budget. I got maudlin wishing for one more conversation with my father who would no doubt be displeased to interrupt his heavenly rest to come down here and chat with me about nonsense. I thought about peace on earth but thought that might be too much for a genie to deal with. After much debate, I landed on 1) Health 2)Happiness 3)Wisdom. 

So BougieLand - What What You Do? If you had three wishes that could only be used for yourself and you can't ask for more wishes... what would you wish for? Do share...

Could you be... Gloria Cain?

In the wake of Herman Cain's heauxnanigans, several people on the Twitter began speculating on his wife's state of mind and future plans. This past Saturday, as Gloria Cain stood doing her best Season One Alicia Florrick (if you don't watch The Good Wife, you really really should) imitation - I felt a little queasy. As Herman announced that he was "at peace with his wife" and she was at peace with him, she smiled and clapped like he'd just delivered the MLK "I Have a Dream" speech.

What, I wondered, could possibly motivate a woman to stand up and clap for a man who at the very least has a wandering eye but most probably is a blatant philanderer and grabber of random asses. The minute I asked the question, my timeline flooded with two flavors of responses. Either she was a good Christian woman and was standing by her man to keep the covenant or she had worked out her own economic recovery plan. In short, Gloria was getting paid.

Gloria has been married to dude for 43 years. Georgia is an "equitable distribution" state. I'm not an attorney but I believe that means she gets paid whether she stays or goes. 

There are a lot of things I joke about doing for money. And when push came to shove with millions of dollars at stake, I think I'd pause and consider the "what would you do" question. But this right here? Standing up at a nationally televised event with a man who has completely humiliated me? Could not do it.

I remember years ago, I was in a hair salon with Deion Sanders' first wife. She said she could not take all the extracurriculars and was going to bail. Now most of us in there were young and single and involved with some flavor of professional athlete. Half of the room told her to get a good attorney and bounce, the other half of the room said to give him a chance to turn the corner but stay. His earning potential in the long run was worth a little suffering now. I was stunned. I'd never heard marriage broken down like an income and expense sheet before or since. That "what happens on the road, stays on the road" nonsense did not fly with me. (Hence the failure of that relationship.) I just remember her saying, "I've run out of cheeks and blind eyes to turn." There it is.

We don't know Gloria Cain. She seems to be a real class act, old Southern bouge if you will. We definitely don't know Gloria's motivation. Maybe she really loves that idiot man, maybe she doesn't believe in divorce, maybe she believes these women are all just out to get him... I don't know. I do know that I couldn't do it. Not for all the money in the world.

Bougie Brothers and Sisters. I think we've asked before if you would stay with a cheating spouse. But would you stay with a cheating spouse for a multi-million dollar payout? Why do you think Gloria stayed? Do you think she'll leave eventually? And what do you think of the "Hillary stayed, Gloria should too" argument? Please discuss...

Could you.. be on a reality show?

So BougieSis was approached earlier in the year about participating in a Miami-based reality series about Human Resources Professionals. Something about putting them all up in a South Beach hotel together and competing for talent. She politely declined but we had a good chuckle over that one. An HR reality show? Really? I'm not surprised I haven't seen the promos for Real Recruiters of South Beach..

Then I was called this week about a possible reality show about aspiring authors living a house together (Why does it always involve shoving strangers in a house together?) while battling to win a multi-book deal.  Um.. er. No. In fact, hell no. 

The woman who called me was stunned silent. She asked me, "Why not?" and then sat in silence while I listed no less than 15 reasons why I wasn't interested. When I finally wound down she asked, "Is there any scenario you can dream of where you'd appear on any reality show?"

**crickets**

Bougie Sistahs of Dallas? The Black and The Bougie? Who Wants to Be Bougie? How to Turn a Pookie Into a Preston?  Keep Peaches off the Pole? Bougie Hook-ups? After thinking it over for a nano-second, I replied - "Um, no."

She asked me to think about it and give her a call back. I sent her info over to my agent and asked her to make it go away. Forever.

So I ask you, BougieLand... could you appear on a reality show? If so, what kind of show? Talent? Match-Making? Competition? What would it take for you all to show up on Real Bougienistas of the Internet?